Sallah wasn't in it. However, I disagree that Temple of Doom was a failure. It was fun, action packed and quotable from top to bottom. The only real complaint you can give it is that it wasn't as "complex" story-wise as the first and third. But the fights, chases and jokes all landed.

I think the opening action sequence from Temple of Doom might be my favorite scene in all the Indy films. Perfect set-up, timing, staging, everything. The diamond falling in the ice cubes, the poison and the antidote, Short Round driving the car...and then to end it with that Dan Aykroyd cameo, and Indy getting on the suicide plane...genius.

Well, I liked "Temple of Doom" least of all. I thought "Crystal Skull" was pretty good overall. I can understand the basis of the criticisms, but I either disagree with the conclusion or simply don't care. To me, it was an Indiana Jones movie. I mean, I liked "Casino Royale", thought it was a great action flick, but it just wasn't a Bond movie.

In the "Top Critics" section at Rotten Tomatoes it's coming in (currently) at 63%. That's right about where I'd put it...above the 50% mark for a movie overall. I have to agree...somewhat better than 50/50...but the problems it carries are BIG. It should still be seen on the big screen with a decent sized audience. Seeing it on a small screen will reduce whatever magic it does have to almost nill.

Here's a funny but accurate plot-spoiler/complaint about the movie from someone at IMDB:

8. The Russians
Why are the Russians even in this stupid movie? Apparently according to the shabby back-story, Indy joined the military and spied on them for a while (why, however he didn?t participate in WWII is not mentioned). But how do they sneak into the US in 1957? How do they break into a top-secret military base in the US? Why does Cate Blanchett even want the stupid alien body when she already has two of them at home? Then when she obtains 3 of them (thanks to Indy?s help (WTF?)) why does she need that stupid skull that ?hidden? in that Conquistador?s tomb? Why is Blanchett?s accent so pathetic? They are horrible villains, not anywhere near as interesting or menacing as the villains in the first three movies? they didn?t even kill ANYONE!

7. CGI
Am I mistaken, or did Spielberg say that there wouldn?t be much CGI in this movie? Because there was a ton of CGI in this movie. Do you know what made the insects in ?Temple of Doom? so creepy? THEY WERE REAL INSECTS! They couldn?t find any real ants? Have they looked in my bathroom? I already saw the CGI killer ants in a different bad movie (which is ?No Country for Old Men? compared to Indy IV) called ?The Mummy.?

6. Sound Stages
Do you know what made the jungle in ?Temple of Doom? so menacing? IT WAS THE REAL JUNGLE! Not some crappy sound stage in Universal Studios. Also, what was with the lighting? I have never seen so many brightly lit underground caves in my life.

5. Mutt Williams
Jones III. I have no problem with Indy having a son. He can have fifty kids for all I care as long as their characters are developed. All we know about Mutt is that he dropped out of school and dropped out of fencing school. Give him something to work with! Give him a passion (besides his hair), give him a love interest, GIVE HIM ANYTHING! We don?t care about this stupid kid because we don?t get a chance to even know this stupid kid.

4. The monkeys.
Shia can swing across carefully placed vines like Tarzan, faster than any vehicle, while gathering up monkey reinforcements. Then the monkeys beat up only the bad guys. Did I mention that there is a lot of CGI? Did I mention that there is a lot of BAD CGI? This scene looks like JibJab threw it together in Flash. I hate the world.

3. Professor ?Ox? Oxley
Worst character ever? I think so. This guy was? (sigh) I hate him so much I don?t even want to talk about it.
Instead I?ll mention that Indy and his friends are INVINCIBLE. Nuclear bombs, multiple waterfalls, quicksand, aliens, nothing hurts them, not even scratches them.

2. Where?s the hot chick?
I mean come on! No love interest? Marion Ravenwood is back, I realize that. But Indy doesn?t even re-establish their relationship. It goes as follows:
a) Indy left a pregnant and pissed off Marion 21 years ago.
b) Marion gets married to someone named Williams (who we learn nothing about) and hangs around that idiot Oxley a lot.
c) She names her baby Henry Jones III, but tells him that his name is Henry Williams. (Why would she do that)?
d) 21 years later she gets kidnapped by Russians and taken to the jungle.
e) Indy ?saves? her.
f) It?s all good, LET?S GET MARRIED.

I love Karen Allen as much as the next guy, but let?s face it, she was just happy to receive a phone call for this movie. This movie needed a hot love interest / femme fatal. (No, Cate Blanchett doesn?t count, she hooked up with nobody and looked like a cartoon character).

1. The Plot
Years ago in Roswell NM, Indy was blindfolded and taken to some crash site where aliens with magnet

Pathfinder (the one from 2006), not the Last of The Mohicans one. Terrible! I love historical fiction, and this was just garbage. There must have been all of 20 pages of dialogue. Characters are given names in the credits, but you only ever hear one (Karl Urban's Ghost). If you like lots of bloody fighting, rent this. If you like your Vikings or Native Americans remotely accurate, don't.

Into the Wild - Completely pretentious garbage. I wouldn't expect anything less from Sean Penn, who deserves to be punched in the face for this movie. Everything about it was pretentious...the premise, the tone, the dialogue, the Eddie Vedder songs, even the framing was pretentious. I utterly hate this movie. Don't watch it. If you ever have the opportunity to meet someone who was involved in its creation...punch them in the face.

For a Darabont film, the acting is pretty bad (especially considering the dude from "Homicide" has a hefty role), but overall I was surprised at the film's ability to generate tension without cheating (much) with the offscreen space. The religious zealotry subplot was laid on a bit thick, however. The ending was ok, I guess. I would have been happier with something a little more "Birds"-esque.

The Forbidden Kingdom - Sort of a fantastical Karate Kid 7.....a really bad and boring Karate Kid 7. Almost a regression for Jackie Chan, who doesn't need a bunch of special effects to be awesome. Same, mostly for Jet Li, except we've come to expect Li to be in unwatchable films despite his ass-kicking.

21 - Huge bore-fest. Apparently Kevin Spacey's acting chip wasn't Y2K compatible as next year will be the official 10 year anniversary of his complete cinematic irrelevance. Spacey was as unremarkable as "21" was overall. Lots of jokes launched, none landed. It tried to be slick like an Ocean's 11 type machine with a group of braniacs trying to make a run on a Vegas casino. Unfortunately no one is relatively likable except the main character, and he can't carry the entire movie by himself.

Horton Hears a Who - Attempting to stretch this Suess story into a feature film resulted in tremendous boredom. Carey's impersonations and vocal "antics" are 15 years too late. The CGI pushes no envelopes. If this had have been made into a 1-hour Made-For-TV special it may have been passable, but good luck trying to get all the way through it.

BASEketball - I went into this movie with almost no preconceptions, and I have to admit, I kinda liked it. The juxtaposition of the professional sports figures being very unprofessional was interesting, and the rest of it wasn't bad. I was a little shocked to find out that this wasn't a Parker/Stone vehicle and that they were just hired as actors. It kind of beats you over the head with the underdog-sports-team-wins-it-all-including-the-girl formula, but I wasn't offended and had a good time watching it. I don't think it was as bad as I was led to believe. The cheerleaders were great. Why can't more teams be like that?

Mighty Aphrodite - I went into this movie with almost no preconceptions, and I have to admit, I kinda liked it. The juxtaposition of the ancient Greek chorus being absolutely not ancient was interesting, and the rest of it wasn't bad. I was a little shocked to enjoy a Woody Allen movie as much as I did. It kind of beats you over the head with the quirky-guy's-marriage-breaks-up-but-he-finally-finds-a-quirky-mate formula, but I wasn't offended by it and had a good time watching it. I don't think it should have won as many awards as it did. Mira Sorvino was great. Why can't she just admit she loves me and wants to have sex with me?

John Rambo - You know it' really a bad night in movies when the best of four is a Stallone movie. Well, it was uber-stoopit...but it's worth watching for some pretty sweet Murder Death Kills. It's also mercifully short. I thought it was going to try to have some sort of moral with the Christian missionary plot-line. Luckily it didn't. No morals except cursing mercs and gratuitous gory war-death.

It was entertaining but it needed more zombies IMHO. The docu-drama(ala "Cloverfield")was ok but irritating sometimes and some good gory effects. As usual, Romero draws up some kind of social issue with his movies, this time that EVERYONE has a camera nowadays and must catch everything on film. All in all, a good rental.

"When there's no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the Earth."

P.S. Bit of a spoiler below, nothing too harmful....

Simon Pegg(Shaun of the Dead) and Stephen King have voice cameos. Listen for them.